Faith and Belief of the Mind
by McRoselyn
Summary: He didn't know anymore what was real from what was his imagination. He had to do a choice and the faster, the better. But what consequences the choice he could make would bring to his life? And was he prepared to make these choices? Season 4 with Donna (because she's awesome) and Reunion Fic with Rose (because Rose).
1. Chapter 1

Hey people, nice of you to be on this page, ready to read this thing. Just to warn some of you: english is not my first langage, so I'm really sorry for any mistake. And because I don't have any beta, the mistakes may be quite big/great/enormous, and I'm really sorry.

Also, because I have a strange life at the moment, update will take time. And when I say time, I mean it. You are warned.

Well, now, I can say that nothing belongs to me and I'm making no money, no nothing from/with it. Just a bit of entertainment for others (and me). Sadly. Hmmm. It's a good thing, I think, because every character would need a personnal psychologist at the end of every fic. That would cost money I should think. :)

And so, let's begin the reading, people! I hope you'll enjoy it!

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**Chapter 1**

_"To believe is to know you believe and to know you believe is not to believe."_

Jean-Paul SARTRE

* * *

**T**he dark circles beneath his eyes were enough to scare most of his colleagues away, but not his Detective Sergeant, Ellie Miller, and not his cardiologist, Doctor Robert Kenningston. What a chance. He thought he could get away from this. That was his original plan: finish the case that put Ellie's husband in jail and wait patiently for his misery to end. But he didn't count on the stubbornness of the woman and her iron will, nor did he count on the fearsome Dr. Kenningston. That man was terse at best. Rightfully terrifying at worst.

"You can't put the surgery on hold forever, Inspector, you know that," Dr. Kenningston was telling him. "The chance for you to make a full recovery is diminishing with the time. You have to do it now."

"You said it yourself, doctor," he countered. "We don't even know if I'll survive the surgery."

"You won't survive without it and that is certain. With the surgery, you have a chance. Take it." The doctor looked at his patient, trying to make a point. "If you want to see it that way: you'll die if you don't do it. You may also die if you take it. The result will be the same. _But_ you may have a chance to live. And I think that's why you're afraid. Why would that be, Inspector?"

The Detective Inspector Alec Hardy was on his feet instantly, his angry glare on the doctor.

"None of your business," he answered sharply, putting his scarf around his neck and going for the door.

"You'll be on my table for the surgery soon enough, Inspector."

"We'll see," and the detective was gone without a backward glance.

—-—

"You're an idiot!"

"Miller—" he began, but she cut him off.

"You. Are. A. Bloody. Idiot! That's what you are!"

He looked at her as she paced in front of him in his hotel room. He told her about his visit to his doctor and how it went. She said nothing, stood up and began pacing. Minutes passed before he heard her swearing at him.

"I'll do what I bloody well want to with my life," he snapped.

"Your life is not your own when you're in the bloody police, Hardy! You have to do the surgery! You have a job to do! How are you gonna catch murderer if you're six feet under?! You stupid, selfish, bastard!"

That's when he understood her anger: doubting her worth in the Force, she put her faith in him and what's the first thing he did, besides catching her killer-husband? Say no to a heart surgery, because life was too hard for him, when all she hoped to find herself, was something to believe in, a meaning in her own life. He sighed, shoulders sagging in defeat.

"You win," he said. "I'll do the bloody surgery."

He didn't know she would launch herself at him and hugged the life out of him when he said that. But he was responding before putting much thought into it and patted her back awkwardly, in what he hoped, stood for a friendly gesture.

—-—

He was lying in a hospital bed two days after his conversation with Miller— Ellie. He was bored and complaining about the lack of interesting activities in the hospital, but he knew that Miller— Ellie, knew that it was just a front for his fear of what was to come.

"Don't be a grumpy and stupid idiot," she told him, once she could actually speak after his long rant about hospital food, idiot interns, without-tact doctors and fearsome nurses. "They're here to help you, you know."

"They're here because they're sadists who became doctors," he replied without lifting his eyes from the newspaper he was reading.

She slapped his arm none too gently and he threw a glance her way.

"I know you're not exactly enjoying this, Alec," she said after a minute of silence. "But you're going to be fine. And more than fine after the surgery's done."

He sighed and closed the paper, before throwing it on his bedside table.

"I know. And thank you," he told her with his Scottish accent.

She looked at him, surprised by his words.

"For what?" she asked.

"For being here and making me understand I needed this surgery."

"You're very welcome," she smiled at him, more emotional about the whole conversation than she cared to admit.

When nurses and doctor came by a few hours later to take him to his programmed surgery for the pacemaker, he thought that maybe, it wasn't the worst decision he made in his life, after all.

—-—

He was quick to recover from the surgery. Even his doctor was surprised and because of that, the man put him on sick leave a lot longer than necessary. And the man was clever and had resources, because next thing he knew, he was discharged from his post of Detective Inspector until further notice from the Chief Medical Officer, certainly a friend of his bloody cardiologist.

Now, all he had were the brief visits from Miller and his hotel room. His empty hotel room, which never felt so empty before. Lounging on his bed with his hands behind his head, he wondered why he ended here, in this town, and why he stayed here. It wasn't like him to enjoy a place so quiet. Or maybe it was. Sometimes, it was like he was two different people, each enjoying something the other didn't. Well… Guilt, sickness, and with a history like his own, it was quite the normal stuff to feel a little out of place. A small, stiff, but here nonetheless, smile appeared on his face.

Oh, was he smiling now? It seemed like the surgery did more good than he thought. But, was it really good? Was it penance if he felt like smiling, now?

His thoughts turned on his family and the small smile he had on his lips a few seconds before turned into a scowl. There, he knew he was somewhere in here that one. Just think about _her_. His scowl deepened.

—-—

Life had taken a turn for the better apparently. Weeks after his heart surgery, he could walk in his office in the police department again and it sure was a nice change from his hotel bedroom. Miller was back on the job too. Said if she was to move forward, then, move forward she had to, and that included working a job she loved. Even if she was not her sure self anymore. But it was something he promised to win back for her. She was a worthy police officer; she just had to understand it.

First case they worked together was some vandalism from teenagers. They chased them for a couple of blocks and it was the most exhilarating feeling. He could run. He could run again! After that bout, even if they couldn't catch the little buggers, the Inspector felt like living again. He welcomed his shortness of breath and the feel of his heart beating life through his veins. He even welcomed his sweaty forehead with a smile. Because he just ran for two blocks without feeling like he was about to collapse and now that he tried to calm his breathing, he didn't feel the lack of oxygen like he used to. After only two minutes, he was breathing normally again and grinning at Miller.

She looked like she saw a ghost.

—-—

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked her after they were sitting at a table in a chippy to eat.

He was famished. He hadn't had a real meal with his heart problems and now that that was behind him, he wanted a real meal.

"You grinned."

One of his eyebrows climbed up his forehead.

"At me," she elaborated after a few seconds. "You grinned at me."

Confused, he nodded.

"Aye, Miller. And what about it?"

Her eyes were wide and large, like she didn't understand what had happened. And maybe she hadn't. She only knew him when he was sick and trying to put his health behind him, just so he could catch a killer and bring peace to the victim's family. Like he was paying a price. And he was, before his surgery. And now, it was the past, and his real self was beginning to resurface. He didn't know if it was a good thing or not yet.

His scowl remained fixed on his face after that.

—-—

Months had passed since the Latimer case and he knew, somehow, that something was approaching. A storm was coming. And he didn't mean it literally—

"_Beware of tonight's storm passing on the coast. Broadchurch—"_ said someone on the screen's TV.

Oh, well. Maybe it was literally after all.

—-—

"_Run!"_

"_I am!"_

"_Faster! If they catch us, they're gonna put us under!"_

With a gasp, he threw the covers off him and sat up on his bed, breathing rapidly. The dream had been strange. It looked like the kind of hallucinations/dreams he was having before the pacemaker.

Placing a hand on the left side of his chest, he felt his heart calming beneath his palm and with a heavy sigh, he went to lie down again. But sleep would elude him now, he knew it; like he knew it was 3:37 am, 24 seconds past. He stayed on his bed, without sleeping for the rest of the night.

When he stood up the morning after, he put on his dark blue suit and dark blue tie, frowning and finding it too dark. Some colors would do some good for his appearance. He shook his head and scowled, looked at his bedside clock, found it broken, scowled some more, looked at his watch and hurried himself out of his door: he was late for work.

—-—

He was running after the thief, Miller ahead of him. But as he was slowing down more and more, she stopped altogether and started toward him, wanting to help. He shook his head in negation and told her to keep going and to catch the criminal. She took off again, resigned, and knowing he wouldn't budge from his orders, stubborn man that he was.

While she kept running after the thief, he tried to take a deep breath, but something wasn't right. Hands on his knee, heaving, he willed his heart rate to calm, but nothing was happening. His right hand went to his chest and clutched his shirt. It wasn't normal. His heart rate wasn't normal; it felt wrong and too fast and like it was echoing all around his body. The prickling sensation began in his fingers and then exploded in his chest.

Darkness, brightness. All around, all confusing. Voices, so many voices. Languages, all different but the same.

He collapsed.

—-—

"You're done putting your health at risk or not?" was the first words he heard when he woke.

"Wha…?" he croaked, his mouth dryer than the sand sea of the Sahara desert and in need of some water.

A glass was put on his lips and he drank from it greedily, thankful to whoever gave it to him.

"Slow down or you gonna choke on it. And I'm done with you trying to die on me."

Opening an eye after the other, he looked at Ellie, her face hovering above him, in and out of focus. His vision swam for an instant and he closed his eyes, willing everything to stop. Calming himself, he tried to open them again, only to find out he was alone. Wasn't Ellie with him just at the moment or was that a dream? But why would Ellie be in a dream, really?

His thoughts process was sluggish at best. Something had happened and he didn't know what. He closed his eyes once more to concentrate—

"Hey, you hear me?"

—and Ellie was back. His retinas adjusted themselves to the ambient luminosity when he opened his eyes and looked properly at his friend and colleague.

"Why're you wearin' me coat?" he asked, his tongue heavy in his mouth.

She laughed, relieved, before pointing a finger in his face, accusing.

"You fainted on me and the first thing you asked is why I'm wearing your coat?"

And like that, he knew she was not angry with him. Well, she didn't have a reason to be, really. He himself didn't know why he collapsed.

—-—

He was back to work when he sensed something was off with him for a moment. And his doctor said there was nothing wrong with him last time, he was in good health, fit as a fiddle, he said. Or did he? Around him, his office seemed to become blurred, like his vision couldn't focus on anything. Footstep echoed loudly beside him, but when he turned to look at who was coming, he found himself alone. He frowned. The footsteps, he heard them clearly. Or maybe he was confused and it was only the sound of his own heartbeat, which seemed awfully loud. And fast too.

"Sleep."

The voice was murmured near his left ear and he jumped in surprise and fear. Nobody was here with him. There were only two possibilities now, he thought. One: ghosts were real and he just met one. Two: he was mad. He didn't believe in ghosts and werewolves and such supernatural nonsense. He was the kind of guy who had his feet on the ground, but admitting to the second possibility was not conceivable and wrong. He hoped.

The sound of voices in the background seemed to become more and more muted until he could hear no more noises but his own harsh breathing. He felt like he could sleep a week suddenly. He needed a break. After all, he did not sleep a lot these days and the lack of sleep was certainly the cause of those _daydreams_. That explained why he couldn't concentrate on his work sometimes, when his hand stilled above some papers and he didn't know anymore what it was he had to write down. It was as if some part of his brain had frozen and he could do nothing about it, but wait a few seconds to let it pass.

He went out, already thinking of his bed in his empty and cold new house.

—-—

Miller knew something was not right in Hardy's land and she looked at him from time to time, watching his movements, watching the pulsating artery in his neck or on his forehead and counting.

When she talked to his doctor – and yes, he found out about it, he was a bloody detective, wasn't he? – he said everything was fine, but everything was not and she was worried about him and he sensed her cursing him. The Idiot Shitface, he was labeled. She did care for him: he was, strangely enough, the only one to stay the same with her after her husband's arrest and that helped her a great deal, he knew. She understood him better after that and their working friendship evolved into a friendly friendship, if that even made sense.

And now, he was sick again and wouldn't talk about it and she wanted nothing more than to bash his head into the nearest wall for that.

She said nothing. She kept working on her paperwork.

He said nothing. He was thankful for the remaining time she allowed him to have, a time during which he could do as if everything was fine and dandy.

Until she decreed enough was enough.

—-—

It was late at night and he was on his couch, watching the TV blaring some strange music, when he sensed the shift in the air. It was lulling him to sleep but he didn't want to fall asleep, not yet. However his eyes refused to stay opened. He felt numb suddenly. Morpheus welcomed him.


	2. Chapter 2

There, another chapter for you, readers! ;)

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**Chapter 2**

* * *

**H**e was conscious and he was inside his dream. He didn't know how that was possible, but he was. He was lying on his back on a small bed. Beside him, an IV was attached to his arm. He frowned and took it out. Was he in a hospital again? He didn't remember fainting or anything else of that sort. He just went to sleep in his home. On his couch actually, when he was watching telly. Why was he dreaming of a hospital? He was in one far too often for his like. Or was he really dreaming?

"Hello? Anyone in here?" he called out to whoever could hear him.

He was not used to not having a doctor or a nurse attending to his every need, even when he didn't want them. It was strange. His instinct told him it was wrong, very very wrong. His instinct never let him down before and he was not going to begin now.

A sweep of his eyes on the room in which he was revealed two things. There was an opened door and the pole attached to the IV could serve as a weapon if he had to defend himself against an unknown threat. He broke and grabbed a metallic part of the pole firmly in his hands and headed for the door.

After checking for traces of people and finding none, without a noise, he slipped in the corridor. It was long and dark and many more doors like the one he just passed were there.

Curious, he went to the nearer one and pushed it open. Lying on a bed was a woman, quite young, seemingly asleep. An IV was inserted in her arm. She was in the same position he had been, the difference being he had woken. But why?

Something was not right in here.

He let the room and the blonde woman in it and went to another room, to check what his instinct was screaming at him. In the next room was another woman and in the next one was a man, and it kept going on and on, until he didn't have the energy to open more doors. He let himself fall against the wall.

He was in some sort of clinic, as a test subject. But a test subject to what? What was in the IV? He was determined to find out.

With a deep breath, he pushed himself off the wall and began to walk to return to his room: he had to take a sample of the liquid these kidnappers were submitting them to.

He didn't go very far: someone behind him screamed.

—-—

"Doctor?!"

He turned on his feet when he heard the voice yelling behind him and then, in front of him, stood a ginger haired woman, whose surprised expression seemed strangely out of place on her face.

"Oh, thank God!" she exclaimed and began to launch herself at him, only to have him take a step back, out of her reach.

He didn't like it when people tried hugging him, be it friends or complete strangers.

"'m sorry, but I think you mistake me with someone else."

"Oi! Not the time and place to joke, Spaceman! And what's with the accent?"

"I'm not joking," he snapped at her.

She was silent for a moment.

"Who're you, then?" she asked, frowning.

"Alec Hardy, DI. And who _are_ you?"

She gaped at him like a fish before she could reply.

"Donna Noble." She hesitated a moment before continuing. "Traveller."

—-—

"You're telling me, that people just kidnapped us for no other reason than being bored?" He tried hard to have his detective mode online in his head, but it was as if the environment siphoned it out of him and he couldn't think straight anymore.

"Yeah," the woman, Donna she was called, said.

After some quick words of presentation in the corridor, they thought it best not to stay in a place where their kidnappers could easily find them. And now, they were in his room, his cell more like, and he was trying to disentangle the liquid they had been injected with from the pole he had kept with him.

"Do you know what's in here?" he nodded to the transparent liquid.

"Only that it put us in some fantasy world, certainly mixed with some sort of sedative to make us sleep."

"Okay and why are we the only two not to have been affected, then? What's your theory?"

The glare she threw at him reminded him a bit of the one Miller could have on her face when she looked at him, sometimes. It was not difficult to have the meaning behind it: it was some sort of 'how more of an idiot can you be' look.

"I'm not so sure about that," she said to him, with her matter-of-fact tone.

He frowned at her, his hands dropping at his side for a moment.

"Not so sure about what? We're not sleeping, either of us, and unless this place is a dream, we're not dreaming either. And really, I don't know you and if I'd be in a dream, you certainly wouldn't be in it."

The scowl she wore seemed to be more pronounced after he said his part. Shrugging his shoulders, he went to meddle with the pole again. Some sort of wires and an electrical field were there and he didn't know how to cut them off without any tool. If only he had his…

He frowned. He had a word on his tongue, but it was not coming forward. Ah, well. Some kind of tool, really, could do the trick to cut the wires.

—-—

He couldn't take the wires off and that bit of exertion was making him tired and breathless. He was more affected by the solution in the IV than he previously thought and that was making him a bit cranky. Behind him, he could feel the stare of one Donna Noble, boring a hole through his back.

"You all right?"

_Think of the devil and the devil will talk_, he thought. Strange, that. He didn't know why he would think that of her. He didn't even know her! And up until now, she didn't do anything to anger him.

"Aye."

"You don't seem to be alright," she insisted.

He spun around to stare down at her, but the simple movement of turning on his feet made him light-headed and he had to put his hand on the wall to steady him. Donna was on her feet instantly, ready to grab him if he fell.

"Yeah, you _are_ alright," she stated, sarcasm dripping from her words.

"It's nothing. Had a surgery not so long ago. Aftershocks, I s'ppose," he replied and he felt as if he was trying to make himself believe what he was saying.

"Surgery? What surgery?" her voice had a sort of alarm to it now and his head throbbed with the sound of it.

"Heart surgery. But it's fine. Pacemaker and all now."

And like that, she was right in front of him and placed her hands on his chest. The look she gave him was horrified and it stopped him – mid-action – from pushing her away.

"I can sense only one!" she screeched in his face.

He stared at her as if she was from the loony bin – and maybe she was, he didn't know her at all.

"Weeeell, yeah."

There was a moment of stillness, both looking at the other, waiting for something to happen.

She acted the first: throwing him on his knees with a force he didn't even suspect she had, she started to hit him on his back, below his right shoulder.

"What th—" he began before something in him exploded and he had to take a breath, deep and shaky, but so full of life. He suddenly felt as if he had always been underwater and was only now out of it and breathing in the air – sweet, sweet air. He fell on his hands and coughed, jostling all his organs back into place; it hurt his throat to do it and his eyes watered slightly. After a minute of coughing up his lungs, he let himself fall hard on his side. His breathing was fast but he could sense the deepness of it and it was not as horrible as one would think. From his place on the ground, he looked up at Donna, who was watching him warily.

"What did you do to me?" he asked in an awed and worried whisper.

There was something out of place with him, he knew it. His hands went to his chest where he clutched his shirt above his heart, as he used to before the surgery, to help him count his heart rate and steady his breathing. It was then that he remarked it: his beating heart was out of synch. with his breathing. With sudden dread, he placed two of his fingers on his carotid: there again, out of synch. Was it arrhythmia once more? He thought he was done with that!

"What…? I think I have a problem," he said aloud.

Without meaning to, he saw the eye roll from Donna. The woman grabbed his arms and helped him on his feet. She then took both his hands in hers and put them on his chest, one on the left side, the other one on the right side.

_Thud thud; thud thud_

He looked bewildered for an instant.

"How is my heart echoing all around my body?!" He looked at her, frightened of the answer she might give him. "Answer me!" he yelled at her, his patience worn out.

"You have two hearts, bloody idiot!" she screamed in response.

Oh. It explained a lot of things: she _really_ was from the loony bin! He laughed.

"My, my… What have we got here?"

Both Donna and he whirled to face the newcomer who stood on the threshold of the cell. If two hearts was unthinkable, what was facing them was more than that: it was unconceivable, completely barmy; it was a 'he was mad, his place was in a psychiatric asylum' sort of hallucination. But Donna was next to him, gripping his arm as if there was no tomorrow and if the pain was something, then, _maybe_, it wasn't a delirium. But it sure as hell _was_ a nightmare.

Because what stood there, was not – as in _so not_ – human, or _even_, humanoid.

It was a hydra.

Suddenly they were grabbed by human's hands, which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. The goons – because that's what they were, if he had to judge by the attitude of the hydra and its people – tied them separately.

He could hear Donna, somewhere on his right, swearing colorful and very imaginative words to everything and everyone. Maybe in another situation, he might find it funny, but nothing was nowhere near that feeling at the moment. He was actually quite in chock.

Because he was in front of a hydra and its human goons.

What was wrong with him?! It couldn't be real, but it felt like it and he knew somewhere in his head, that it was. As he knew he was Alec Hardy, a DI from the Broadchurch Police. As he knew the sky was orange. As he knew—hold on. There he went again! The sky was blue! Blue! Not orange!

"Keep them sedated and increase the dose. It was not enough if they're awake," the hydra – _it had a lab coat with many, certainly useful, pockets on_ was the thought that popped in his head – said to its thugs.

That seemed to wake him up, as he began trashing against his bindings. The humans around tried to restrain him, but it didn't do a thing with his flailing arms and feet. He was afraid of what may happen next and he couldn't be drugged, wouldn't be drugged.

He didn't see the fist coming toward him, nor did he feel it smash his skull sending it into the nearest wall. All he saw from the corner of his eyes was a big needle piercing the skin of Donna as she was injected with a clear liquid.

He just felt an overwhelming numbness taking over his body as his mind screamed the name of the ginger haired woman, before he knew no more.

* * *

Let me know what you think, people, there's cookies for you! ;)


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